Introduction

Artificial intelligence

Massimo Negrotti

pp. 1-11

in: Massimo Negrotti (ed), Understanding the artificial, Berlin, Springer, 1991

Abstract

The history of the human species has involved a continual process of adaptation to the physical dimensions and fluctuations of the natural environment. Their success in this respect has been achieved not only through an ancient biological and non-intentional evolutionary process but also through intentional efforts aimed at building devices able to provide useful tools for survival. Science and technology are, simultaneously, the main causes and effects of these efforts, and the concrete result of their advances is summed up in the concept of "The Technological Environment". In other words, in order to adapt themselves to the external environment, humans have built up a new one and now they have to deal with two distinct, though interrelated, spaces of fluctuating dimensions, each with its own problems of adaptation, namely the natural and artificial environments.